Spurred by the pressures of paper-based checking which is costly and time consuming for financial institutions and further in light of the inconvenience of maintaining accurate accounting in cash transactions, in addition to risk of theft and loss, financial institutions have sought out and experimented with various electronic means of expanding and speeding up a customer's accessibility to his accounts. To promote account accessibility and improve record keeping as well as to reduce flow of actual cash, computer technology has been applied to develop electronic funds transfer, which is essentially a process of value exchange achieved through the use of electronic devices. Examples of electronic funds transfer equipment that have become used on a substantial basis in recent years are the automated clearing house (ACH), the automated teller machine (ATM) and the point of sale system (POS).
Early electronic funds transfer (EFT) systems have been on-line (that is, in communication with a central computer). There has been a trend, however, to provide off-line electronic funds transfer to eliminate the presence of the central computer in every transaction.
In Moreno U.S. Pat. No. 4,007,355, for example, cashless transactions are made between credit cards through a special interface apparatus located at the vendor station. The cards themselves contain fund data storage capability, but data input and control are provided by the interface. No exchange of funds may be made arbitrarily; because the cards have no keyboards, there must be an interface apparatus present or the cards are useless.
In Stuckert U.S. Pat. No. 4,277,837, a cashless, off-line transaction system involves personal, portable terminals that are adapted for use with data storage and transfer cards. The terminals exchange data with the cards and with other terminals using capacitive coupling. Because the card has no keyboard or display, each individual must have separate cards and terminals whereby the card is carried and applied to the terminal of a vendor to make a transaction. To thereafter read the data contained on the card, the member must have access to his terminal; he cannot continuously monitor his account, and versatility of the system is limited.
In my U.S. Pat. No. 4,305,059, I have provided a system of identical funds transfer modules that are issued by a bank and carried by each member. The module contains a keyboard, a display and electronic circuitry for processing and storing transaction data. Funds are transferred between modules by establishing an electrical connection between modules using a plug or cable. Although generally satisfactory, the establishment of electrical connections between modules tends to be inconvenient and somewhat unreliable. Also, the versatility of this system is limited; it cannot be easily applied to perform data exchange with such equipment as automatic teller machines, charge-telephones, utility metering equipment, etc.